NAA noise complaints continue in Burlington neighborhood

Sunday

Noise complaints from Arden Crossing residents persist against the National Agents Alliance, and the City and Burlington Police Department don’t have any set solutions.

Complaints regarding loud music and thumping bass began in 2016 after NAA, 1214 Turrentine St., was approved for a building addition in March 2016. The addition started renting out for birthday parties, quinceaneras and other events.

A second event center called Prosperity Hall opened in September 2017, which is a large source of the residents’ complaints. According to city staff, the center has concrete floors, a concrete basement, two metal walls and apparently no insulation. This creates a drum effect where the sound goes into the basement, reverberates and shoots out towards Arden Crossing. NAA also received a special permit for a second parking lot, which created more traffic volume. The new center is more receptive to hosting events and parties for nonprofits and charities.

There has been a rise and fall in complaints over the years, with the peak occurring in 2017 after Prosperity Hall opened. From 2012 to February 2019, NAA received 138 complaints, and police issued two citations in 2019.

NAA President Andy Albright said he has no interest in refuting the citations and is focused on fixing the current situation by creating a sound ordinance.

City staff and police held two meetings between residents and NAA over the years, and staff has met with NAA one-on-one, though Albright last met with police and city staff a year ago. None of the meetings or discussions have yielded any major resolutions. Police are looking for a balance between NAA and the residents, with police planning to meet with NAA to go over plans.

“I feel like we are moving in the right direction,” said Chief Jeffrey Smythe. “We are working very diligently and I am optimistic that NAA will make some physical plans and structural changes in the near future that will positively impact this. If we don’t, then we are going to continue to use the legislative and legal options available to us to curtail their actions and positively impact the neighborhood.”

Two meetings

For the past year, the city was not involved, as it thought there were ongoing solutions, said City Manager Hardin Watkins. Smythe updated the council during a council work session on Feb. 4. In January, police visited the site, did a sound check and spoke with residents, where they found that some expect absolute peace and quiet from the center, which is not possible in an urban environment, Smythe said.

One accomplishment for the residents was when city staff visited NAA in January and found it was violating an ordinance on generators and lights in the parking lots; lights were pointed towards the residences when the ordinance stated lighting should be shielded away from them. Staff, including Zoning Administrator Joey Lea, spoke with NAA and the lights and generators were removed. Lea said NAA is looking at getting solar powered lights, though Albright did not confirm this and said NAA is looking at options.

The council seemed surprised that the NAA problem is ongoing. Council member Jim Butler said he felt horrible that residents were coming before the council looking for help and the council didn’t have a clear solution.

“It is time to resolve it,” Butler said. “There is a point in time where somebody has got to say ‘Enough is enough.’”

Police and city staff, including Mayor Ian Baltutis and council member Harold Owen, met with residents Wednesday, Feb. 13, to listen to their complaints for an hour and a half.

“There was some two-way communication, but it really was an opportunity for the residents to speak and us to listen,” Smythe said.

Next events

Three days later, NAA rented out its event center for a concert featuring Morris Day and the Time. The event was a fundraiser for the Alamance Children’s Museum, and NAA alerted residents of the concert beforehand.

Police went out at 3 p.m. to monitor the sound check, but the band was not there, so NAA played canned music through its sound system. When the live band performed with its own sound system, the sound quality was different, which led to numerous complaints.

Police received one complaint at 3:18 p.m. during the sound check; two more complaints at 5:41 p.m. and 6:02 p.m. during the band’s warm up; four complaints throughout the concert; and a final complaint at 9 p.m.

Smythe stood outside with the residents at Arden Crossing for over an hour and listened to the noise. At 9 p.m., Lt. Mark Yancey brought NAA CFO Keith Hall to the neighborhood so he could listen.

At one point, police asked NAA to turn down the bass, which they felt NAA complied with, but then the music seemed louder, Smythe said. After the concert ended, Burlington police issued a $50 citation to NAA.

Albright said two residents harassed NAA employees with misstatements, profanity and insults, which caused NAA to talk to police. Smythe confirmed NAA told police about the harassment but that from what he was told, it didn’t sound like a prosecutable crime.

“I offered some suggestions to reduce the impact of the actions and/or seek other civil remedies,” Smythe said.

During the public comment session at a regular council meeting Feb. 19, resident Josh Trull spoke about the event, saying Smythe allowed the noise to happen.

“We was [sic] told that we wouldn’t have this problem and we still had the problem. I think that is messed up,” Trull said.

Trull told the council the problem has been getting worse and that when he works long hours and comes home to sleep, he can’t because of the noise. He then said an officer previously told Trull that an NAA staff member told the officer that NAA would go on a pre-pay basis for citations. Smythe said he has not heard anything about the claim. Albright said the claim is speculation.

Four days after Trull’s comments, NAA held another event for the Jack and Jill Foundation. Smythe monitored it along with Yancey. He did not receive any complaints in person, and no one called Communications.

Problems

There is no definitive answer on whether NAA’s noise is due to the music and bass being too high, if the center needs to be soundproofed, or both.

“Ultimately what we are trying to seek is for [NAA] to build an internal control, whether it is a procedure or a person or a process that solves this so we don’t have to babysit,” Baltutis said.

NAA said in the past it will make improvements to baffle the noise, but the residents, city staff and police say they are not seeing any proof.

“We are always optimistic when folks say they are working on it that that is going to lead to a solution,” Watkins said. “What we learned with the two most recent events is whatever has been done is not obviously meeting the neighbors’ needs for peace and quiet in their homes.”

NAA has spent tens of thousands of dollars on improvements, evident in the center creating guidelines, including requiring events to end by 11 p.m. and planting shrubbery to aide in noise canceling, Albright said.

“We’ve placed cushions on our speakers to reduce vibrations, and we abide by all noise ordinances from neighboring counties since we do not have our own,” Albright said.

To Albright, the problem is that there is a grumpy neighbor or two who chose to be unhappy and unsatisfied with any resolution NAA offers.

“There is a point when you allow grumpy to be grumpy,” Albright said. “These two people have been heard, they have been offered solutions. However, they seemingly will only be happy if we shut down and that will never happen. We bring too much good to the community to be bullied into not hosting events. … It’s unfortunate because if they redirected the passion they have for our venue and joined us to do good in the community we could be great partners."

The biggest issue is that the city ordinance that was adopted Oct. 1, 2018, which is based off a reasonable person perspective, is subjective and does not include a decibel level, though there is concern a set decibel number will allow NAA to remain a few decibels below that, Smythe said.

Albright said he lobbied Smythe and others to create a county noise ordinance, and NAA hired sound engineers to see what the center could do in the future to minimize any possible disturbances, including testing decibels and comparing them to neighboring cities. The sound engineer told NAA that at its loudest, it is within the legal limits of surrounding cities, Albright said.

Another problem is that police are not receiving a universal complaint from the Arden Crossing residents; some residents are okay with the noise and bass, others are bothered but at certain times, and a few residents are asking for total silence. On this same note, loud noise during the afternoon is not the same as loud noise at night, and loud noise on a Tuesday is not the same as loud noise on a Friday, Smythe said.

“We are working through this very swampy ground of a subjective ordinance applied in very dynamic circumstances … with potential victims who are across the board,” Smythe said. “It is such a moving target. It is so difficult for us to manage that.”

For the city, it is not in a position to tell NAA what to do as it is private property, and the city and police do not have an approval process, so any solutions would be at NAA’s discretion, Smythe said.

Solutions

What appears to be the obvious solution would be for NAA to turn the sound and bass down.

“I think we all know how to control sound. We are taught that from when we were young from our parents: Turn down the volume,” Watkins said.

Albright did not comment on what is stopping NAA from turning down the music or soundproofing the building. Since that is not happening, the main solution police and city see is to find a balance between the residents and NAA so they can peacefully coexist.

City Attorney David Huffman is looking into viable options for Burlington, including ordinances with a decibel level, from other cities’ ordinances, and he plans on reaching out to these cities to see how they implemented the ordinances and what their struggles and successes were.

“We would much rather use ... ordinances that are already in place in other cities where they have applied them and understood what the strengths and weaknesses are … so we can go into this with our eyes wide open and make sure that we are most effective on the first go round rather than go along and come back a year later and have to try to modify that,” Smythe said.

After the Morris Day and the Time event, NAA reached out to police and said it wanted to share plans, Smythe said. Police and NAA are working on a date to meet.

“I feel like NAA is looking at solutions that will be facility or infrastructure improvements that they will invest in at their cost because they, too, recognize that the neighborhood is negatively impacted by their events,” Smythe said.

For NAA, their goal is to become more important to the community and be good neighbors to the residents in Burlington, Albright said.

“We employ about 100 of those neighbors and they are not only our colleagues, they are our friends and family,” Albright said.

He added that NAA’s impact on the Burlington economy is in the millions of dollars and that NAA has relationships with neighbors and local businesses that benefit from NAA being here.

Reporter Kate Croxton can be reached at kate.croxton@thetimesnews.com or 336-506-3078. Follow her on Twitter at @katecroxtonBTN.

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